The interest in heritage as a tool for development has been substantial in recent years in Sweden, especially when it comes to the importance of receiving a World Heritage status. Most of the Swedish World Heritage sites were accepted on the UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention list during a very short period of time during the 1990s. Since then the ambitions of the local actors have still been strong and has resulted in five additional nominations during the beginning of the 2000s. There are two more sites that are on the tentative list of properties that could be considered for future nomination by the Convention. How can this interest in receiving the status of World Heritage be analysed and understood? Is it a reflection of the contemporary commodification of culture within a global tourism system? The process of commodification and promotion of heritage for commercial needs is driven by a notion of global competition between places and destinations and a need for development measures in peripheral locations. It is also a process that is closely related to national, regional and local politics and policies of identity formation and economic development. This study is an attempt to examine the role of world heritage sites in the local and regional development practices and the way in which heritage resources are used to communicate specific place identities. How are the World Heritage sites communicated through advertisements and information texts on the Internet? The study is conducted as an analysis of marketing and information material on the Internet from the 14 existing World Heritage sites in Sweden. A classification and comparison of the strategies adopted by each site are also included in the study. The creation of the heritage should not be seen as a simple construction of the past for the means of preserving and consuming the results of this commodification, but as multileveled process driven by several notions, with the prevailing issues of local development and tourist consumption. The existence of these contested views on heritage representation is supported by analysis of the promotional texts from the Swedish World Heritage sites.